I wrote this yesterday when we were supposed to get 20 cm (8 inches) of snow. We didn’t and everything is all melty, but it still holds true. Suggest you take number 1 to heart since we have a bit of reprieve right now.

Dear Drivers,

It’s that most wonderful time of the year when Vancouver gets it’s annual snowfall. I expect this year won’t be as bad as last year, but the rules are the same:

1. Get some goddamn snow tires already

For real. Just because “Vancouver doesn’t get that much snow” if you’re going to insist on going out in your car, in the snow, GET SNOW TIRES. You’ve had a year to save up since LAST YEAR’S snowfall. Buy the damn tires and another set of rims, keep them mounted and have them switched out every Thanksgiving and Valentines Day (or Easter if you tend to go on long drives to the interior).

2. If you park your car outside clear ALL of the snow off the windows, headlights, turn signals and the taillights before you get going

The windows are there so you can see when you drive. If there’s snow covering the windows, you can’t see. Duh.

Also, once you start moving, the snow falls off onto the (hopefully) cleared roads and messes them up, and flies onto the windshield of the car behind you. Really, really annoying. This morning, I drove Darren to the train, and the minivan in front of me had only cleared the windshield. With the wipers. The headlights were on but the taillights weren’t cleared off. I couldn’t tell if the driver was using signals when he/she turned because those were also covered. If it hadn’t been for the streetlights, I wouldn’t have been able to see the back of the car. With that in mind…

3. If you need to clear the white stuff off your car, give yourself extra time.

Before we start on our snowy way back to Vancouver and as I’m drinking my coffee at the inlaws, before anyone else gets up, Linda has a few questions. I’ve always meant to participate in this questionnaire, but never took the time. Of course, now I know how to make a draft of an entry and come back to it later so this might be easier. Anyways, here are the questions and my answers (in italics):

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t generally make resolutions, except to be a little kinder and a little gentler with those around me. I think I did okay. This year, I plan to not be too hard on myself and to make time for myself once my baby arrives.

I just got back from the Farmer’s Market that’s held every Saturday from May to October here. The end of July is usually a good time to go – crops are at their best around here, despite the cool-ish weather we’ve been having.

Today I picked up this bag of stuff:

Bag of goodies

Shall we see what’s inside?

(yes, yes, I know. There’s a mysterious paper bag in there – but I left one of my reusable produce bags in the fridge)

Raspberries: Local. Spray-free. Mmm.

I also got one of these cases of raspberries:

Hey, I just noticed that the box labelled “Fresh BC Berries is reflected in the window. Cool.

(Note to self: must learn how to use photoshop and deal with varying brightnesses. Or just learn to use the bazillion and three settings on my camera).

Before moving onto the bag, lets get up close and personal with the berries:

Up close and personal with the raspberries. I think they might be embarazzed 🙂

So, back to the bag of bounty.

First I went to the Egg Lady and got some carrots and radishes. The radishes are big and plump, the carrots are a bright orange with long, leafy greens attached. They are also plump.

Plump radishes

I don’t have a picture of the carrots. They will be eaten soon. Or the potatos I got too. They will be mashed up for Shepherd’s Pie shortly.

Pattypan Squash

Next door to the Egg Lady was another stand with pattypan squash. I grabbed a couple because I want to try this recipe from Robyn. I wonder if it can be done on the bbq instead?

yum

And the brown paper bag from above? That has campari tomatoes. On the vine.

There were numerous other yummy things there – beets and sweet onions and fresh garlic and artisan stuff too, from bread to handbags – all locally made.

When I recreated this blog after getting hacked, there was part of it I didn’t post. A very important part of my story.

Back in 2001, I was sort-of-in-denial-dating Marty. Marty had been my first boyfriend about 10 years earlier, and we’d always been friends. Both of us had gone through rather bad breakups and found comfort in each other. He was my best friend, who knew me better than anyone else. Shortly after we got back together, he said to me, “You smell the same as you did 10 years ago” (and he didn’t mean a lack of deoderant – he associated people with smells).

Christmas 2001 was a bit mixed up. My parents came down and left on Boxing Day. I went shopping. Marty and I had planned to get together on New Years eve and do a Christmas/New Years celebration. We made the plans on December 26th. He was moving and told me he had given his barbeque away. I asked if he was okay and if he wanted me to come over. He declined.

That was the same day I found out a friend’s mother had passed away after a battle with cancer. The remembrance service was to be on December 28th at a funeral parlour next door to where I lived.

On December 28th I cleaned the house top to bottom, went grocery shopping and then next door to the funeral parlour where I attended the service. I remember Katie (who is a vegetarian) saying to me, “I touched MEAT to make these sandwiches.”

I went home after, flipped on the TV and poured myself a drink. A bit later, the phone rang. It was Marty’s mom. “Have you seen my son?” she asked.

Well, no, I hadn’t. And I wondered how she’d gotten my phone number. Apparently, she’d phoned my parents in the Cariboo and asked how to get in contact with me.

I tried to reassure her – saying Marty does this sometimes: he goes away and then comes back a day or two later and tells us about his travels. But something didn’t sit right.

I phoned his roommate, Dan, who was trying to pack up Marty’s waterbed. Marty had been in the midst of moving. I offered to go over to help – Dan declined as he’d just gotten the waterbed draining. Really, I was looking for some sort of contact with him.

The next morning my mom called to make sure I was okay. The fact she thought something was wrong was enough to set me off.

Sunshine called – she was in town from Japan and was returning a call I’d made asking if she’d heard from Marty. She hadn’t.

That afternoon, I called Maple Ridge RCMP and helped out with a missing persons report his mother had already filed.

That evening, I got a call from Marty’s mom saying they’d found his car at the Pitt Meadows Airport. My world shattered.

Sunshine came over on the 31st and dragged me out to New Years’ at the Wild Coyote. We left early and headed out early the next morning to the Pitt Meadows Airport. Dan came whizzing by in his car, pulled a screeching u-turn, leaped out and grabbed me. He told me we shouldn’t go wandering around the airport because they’re bringing out a dog later to look for him.

(Goddamn, this is still hard to write).

In the next 3 or 4 days, I lost 6 pounds. I suffered mood swings like you wouldn’t believe, I called in favours to people in various sectors. I took time off work. I raged and I cried. A lot.

I recovered. I moved along. Despite the fact I’m crying like a baby at the moment, I am happy. And I’d like to think that Marty would want me to be happy.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across an article on missing men in the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley. I scanned it, but nothing jumped out at me. It was a bad memory – one I didn’t want to focus on.

I believe things happen for a reason. That when the Universe nudges you and you don’t respond, it begins screaming.

Aspeth’s post was the scream.

I sent her an email earlier today:

I have to say, about your friend, that really fucking sucks – because it does. I know when I’ve suffered loss the last thing I wanted anyone to say to me was “I’m sorry about…”; I just wanted them to agree with me that it sucks (and when I was being pitiful about it that it was unfair).

And that is why I didn’t post this before. I was tired of having to comfort when the grief was supposed to be my own. I tried to leave it behind. The whole thing sucked. I just wanted someone to come out and say that to me.

Yet, I believe there’s something in the Universe that prods us – whether you believe in God, Buddha, or the Wind in the Trees, it doesn’t matter. I think the Universe was trying to prod me with the “Missing” article. And I didn’t pay attention.

Today, I read Aspeth’s post on Loss. And then I did a google search for marty.

And I came across a Facebook group about him – with people I haven’t had contact with for years.

I deactivated my Facebook account awhile back for a reason based on principle.

Today is May 21. I have no idea when this post will actually be published. Over the weekend sometime, my blog was hacked and the database is gone. Last night, I was hanging out at the Momocrats’ live chat about the Kentucky (boo!) and Oregon (yay!) primaries, and mentioned my blog was hacked. John J. was in there and said this has been a recent problem with wordpress.

Note to other wordpress users out there: IF you are using WordPress 2.5, upgrade to 2.5.1 IMMEDIATELY. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. It’s a free upgrade – just do it.

(Do you think Nike will come after me for that now?)

Oh and one of my gmail accounts also got hacked. If you got an email from me about cheap electronics, please disregard and delete it. My apologies.

Yes, the passwords on both accounts were the same. Coincidence? Maybe, but maybe not.

Did I mention ALL of my posts are gone? I’ve been trying to retrieve them from Google’s cache, but its tedious and time-consuming. If anyone knows a quick and dirty way of doing this, please let me know.

But, enough about idiot hackers.

I’m using a new feature in Word 2007 to compose this – they actually have blog templates which you can upload later. So once the blog is back up, I’ll see if it actually works.

* * * * *

May 27

Today, I got an email from Katie asking me where the blog is. So I thought I should get off my duff and get this thing set up. Its now set up on WordPress’ free hosting whatsit. I wrote the above in Word on the 21st, published it directly from there and OMFG it worked! Hopefully at some point, I’ll get the archives back up. So for those of you in using readers, you may see a whole bunch of posts all at once.

And it seems to work – well, mostly. I like it anyways. It makes life much easier.